Godspeed

: what is the history behind the phrase Godspeed? If anyone can help me I would be most grateful!

Maybe it comes from this longer expression:

GOD SPEED THE PLOUGH; PLOUGH MONDAY -- "God speed the plough, 'a wish for success or prosperity,' was originally a phrase in a 15th-century song sung by ploughmen on Plough Monday; the first Monday after the Twelfth Day, which is the end of the Christmas holidays, when farm laborers returned to the plough, soliciting 'plough money' to spend in celebration." From "Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins" by Robert Hendrickson (Facts on File, New York, 1997)